Legally Blonde

My Beauty Blog

Learn Secrets To Sexy Hair

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Who says you have to covet the latest hairstyles being worn by your favorite celebrities? When you want a style that’s all your own it helps to know helpful hair tips and tricks that you can easily do at home. Whether it’s a simple ‘do for school or if you’ve got a big night planned, there are a couple of things you can add to your hair to make all heads turn.

Are you tired of your long and boring locks but don’t want a new haircut? Do something different by using traditional hairstyles – but add a twist. For example, a ponytail by itself can be pretty plain and even make you look like a kid. But with the right accessories and styling, you can sport a sexy ponytail that your friends will want to copy. To get a classy, sophisticated look, take a dab of pomade or hair wax and slick your hair back and away from your face.

Read More: Learning Gym Lingo.

Depending on what look you’re going for, you can secure your ponytail high on your head for a sassy style or right at the nape of your neck for a more conservative, traditional look. Use a band that matches your hair color so it blends in. For a touch of style to your ponytail, try adding a large hair clip or rhinestone covered barrette.

Another great hairstyle for long hair is the dependable French Twist. This tried and true hairstyle can easily be done at home and spiced up with your own personal touch.

The best way to do your own French Twist involves the following:

  • Brush or comb your hair until it is completely smooth and free of flyaways. Create a loose ponytail and pull down a few strands to frame your face.
  • While holding your ponytail with both hands, start twisting. It doesn’t matter if it’s clockwise or counter-clockwise, whatever works for you. Twist your hair in two full rotations.
  • Hold your ponytail upright pointing up to the sky and fold the end of your ponytail down by tucking the end into space between your head and the beginning part of your ponytail.
  • As you tuck the end of your ponytail in, slowly roll your wadded-up ponytail to the left by gripping the seam between your ponytail and your head between your thumb and other fingers. Use your thumb to push the hair beneath while rolling the hair on top inside. Keep rolling and pushing until your hair feels secure and add bobby pins to keep your French Twist in place.

For gals with short to medium length hair, make the most of hair accessories. Crystals, hair ornaments, and clips can add just the right touch of glamour or funky style to your short ‘do. Crystal hair snaps give short hair a sleek and refined appearance. Don’t underestimate the use of a good headband either. All hair lengths can complete their look with the right headband—wide, skinny, plain, beaded, patterned – you can find the right kind for your needs. By using the right hair accessories and styles, your hair will be far from boring!

Learning Gym Lingo

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Going to a gym can be pretty intimidating, especially if you aren’t familiar with the atmosphere. To make yourself more comfortable and secure, it helps to know not only how things work but the lingo that comes with the territory. Once you know the way to communicate with others in the gym, you’ll enjoy your workout more and without fear of being the “new kid on the block.”

You may have heard of core training. This term means to exercise that works both the muscles of the abdomen and the lower back. Core training is needed in just about all sports and activities. So if you’re signing up for this type of workout, just know that you’ll get a lot out of it! Intervals involve periods of fast movement with high-intensity training with slower recovery periods. This process helps the body improve speed-wise as well as condition the body to adapt to various plateaus of strength and endurance. Those seeking a method of weight loss through exercise will want to concentrate on their intervals during each workout routine. A similar term related to core training is anaerobic training. This also uses fast-paced training such as sprinting. During anaerobic training, the supply of oxygen is quickly exhausted.

You may like Let Him Dress You.

The term aerobic is a commonly used one but not too many know the exact definition. Aerobic training increases the heart rate, as well as strengthens the heart and lungs. This type of exercise needs a lot of oxygen. Aerobic training is also known as cardiovascular training or simply, “cardio.” So anytime you hear any of these variations of the term, you’ll want to call to mind exercises such as cycling, swimming, running and rowing.

Warm up is one term that is pretty self-explanatory, yet is very important when it comes to anything physical. Warming up is a way to prepare your body for the upcoming fitness regimen. Doing a warm-up prior to working out serves to let the muscles and the heart get a head start. Just a few minutes of warming up can prevent the risk of injuries and allow for a smoother workout. The term “cool down” is similar to warming up, but instead of doing the simple stretches and exercises before starting your workout, the cooldown period happens after the workout is over.

During this time, the cooldown lets the heart slow down and allows waste products such as lactic acid (a common waste product that gathers in the muscles. Too much lactic acid can cause soreness) to be cleansed from the muscles. Not only is warming up essential to a good workout, so is rest. Yes, “rest” is part of the gym lingo. As the name implies, this is the period of time when you are resting and not working out. Rest can also refer to the days when you don’t normally go to the gym and work out. It is important to take short breaks in between your exercises in order to let your body reenergize.

When exercising, you’ll often hear people talking about repetitions, also called reps. This means the number of times you do a certain exercise. The term “sets” describes the number of times you perform a certain number of reps. Weight training is a common gym term as well but is generally referred to as resistance training. Training of this type involves free weights, resistance bands, and machines, among many others.

Let Him Dress You

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Every girl wonders what her guy thinks is sexy. Jeans or a skirt? Heels or sneakers? Bold or demure? Fun or mysterious? But odds are, when asked, the response from most guys is something to the effect of “you look good in everything.” At least it should be. If he doesn’t even give you that, get a new guy – there are more than 3 billion of them out there give or take a few million. But we digress. The problem with not knowing what clothes send your guy over the top is that when you want to do just that you’re shooting in the dark. If he thinks you’re irresistible in a tank top and sweats, then save the money on the six-inch heels and be comfortable. But if it’s high fashion that keeps his attention, you don’t want to show up in a pair of old jeans – no matter how good they make your butt look.

Check This: Fashion Tips for Wearing Tall Boots.

We decided to take some of the guess work out of it and ask around. We found two things that surprised us. First, guys notice more in the world of fashion than they let on. And second, they really do have an opinion on what they like – they just need to see it know. We compiled the results and here are our top three recommendations for your closet based on what our guys had to say.

The Sundress

All our guys love the sundress. Not every one of them knew exactly what one was, but when faced with examples, they all approved. Whether light and cotton or dressed up for a night out, the sundress makes a big splash with the boys. The length – above the knee – certainly helps, but what seems to be the constant running through the feedback is that girls wearing sundresses have a hard time being anything other than happy. (Think about it; if you’re in a lousy mood, odds are you’re not reaching for the sundress.) Sundresses make us smile and when we smile, our boys melt – some even admit it. So in this case, the dress makes the mood and the combination turns heads.

The Heels

There were plenty of guys who said they were happy with girls in hoodies and jeans and loved it when their girls embraced their inner beauty without feeling the need to spend hours in hair and makeup before heading out to the grocery store. But (you did sense the “but” coming, didn’t you?) every last one of them admitted that there is just something over the top sexy about heels. High and strappy were two of the leading likes. He wants to see your feet and all the better when they’re wrapped up in something pretty. And while it isn’t exactly a groundbreaking discovery that guys like girls in heels, think of it as justification for your collection – and all the more reason to go shopping.

The Hats

Hats are somewhat overlooked by many women but, according to our guys, they shouldn’t be. Maybe it’s that the perfect hat can tie an entire look together. Or maybe it’s that by putting the eyes in a shadow a hat draws attention to the lips. Or maybe it’s just that guy like hats. Regardless, see what you have in your closet. The right slouchy hat can make a casual outfit a standout and a crisp retro-style hat with a short brim can take a club look to a whole new level. And as cliché, as it sounds, they still love the straw-cowboy-hat-at-the-beach look. Of course the two-piece and the tan help here too.

Kick The Baby Blues

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As a new mom, you are bombarded with new emotions, responsibilities and sleep deprivation not to mention the return to normalcy in your hormones and body. All this and much more lend themselves to what so many refer to as the baby blues. While these are often considered the less severe cousin to postpartum depression, they can be equally as scary and be trying while you’re experiencing them.

It is estimated that “although half of all women develop “baby blues” that lift after a few weeks, 13 percent experience postpartum depression that can last up to a year,” says Lauren B. Zoschnick, M.D. who is the medical director of the Livonia Health Center in Michigan. She adds that many women who do experience postpartum depression don’t begin to experience symptoms until months after the baby is born. This can be a result of returning to work under the stress of the added responsibility of a child and lack of sleep.

A recent study in Pediatrics states that these three questions are as effective in determining postpartum depression as a professional screening: Have you blamed yourself unnecessarily when things go wrong? Have you been anxious or worried without good reason? And have you felt irrationally scared or panicked? To help keep track of your mental well-being, take stock and answer these questions honestly every few weeks or if you sense that your mood may be changing.

For the almost undeniable bit of baby blues that all moms experience, here are a few strategies for kicking those blues and regaining your sense of self. Please remember that we’re talking about the mild case of blahs, not depression or if you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions. If you can line up a friend or family member to be your helper before the baby comes these tips will work even better for you.

Allow your designated helper to clean your toilets, wash some of the additional laundries, and watch the baby while you sleep. Now sleep! Allow yourself to nap. You need it and the baby needs you to be rested. When you wake up, take a long shower then do your hair and put on makeup as you normally did B.B. (Before Baby). If weather permits, pile you, baby and your friend in the car and go to the park for a walk. Even if it’s the dead of winter, step outside as often as you need to and take a deep breath. Fresh air will work wonders for you.

Read More Cooking With Coconut Oil.

Any of these small things done alone can help you kick the baby blues, combine them for an even bigger boost. You’ll be amazed what a swipe of mascara, a clean shirt or a walk to the mailbox can do for your overloaded brain.

Keep in mind that even if this is your second, third or fourth child, you may experience different postpartum emotions and symptoms with each child. Don’t fear any negative experiences you’ve had after previous pregnancies or dismiss any new challenges you’re having with later pregnancies. Preparation and honest communication with yourself, your spouse and your doctor are crucial to your good health and to your baby.

Cooking With Coconut Oil

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Coconut Oil

To eat healthy, we generally use only vegetable oils for preparing our food. We have been advised all the while that vegetable fats for cooking is a more option compared to animal fat. But vegetable oils contain saturated and unsaturated fats. We were given to believe that unsaturated fats are healthy while saturated fats are bad for body as they supposedly increase cholesterol. But these unsaturated fats are also turning out to be harmful, according to experts.

The reason is this. Non-saturated oils like vegetable oil, corn oil, safflower oil etc., when heated, suffer the effect of oxidation. The harmful result of oxidation on food is known as the rancidity of food. Foodstuffs that are made using the above mentioned fats and oils and kept for a long time emit strange smell and their original taste will change.

Then we call such phenomenon as rancidity. Foodstuff prepared with such oils and fats taste differently. Such food will produce what are called free radicals which damage healthy body cells. Hence they are toxic in nature. So, one needs to use less amount of tehse oils as they tend to become rancid, hence harmful.

Now consider coconut oil. This oil stays stable on heating. It doesn’t get altered. It is not prone to oxidation. So, there will be no free radicals problem. So, damage to bodily cells. You can cook food with it, bake food using it, you can even use for dressings etc.

Consider the advantages of coconut oil:

  • Helps in keeping the heart healthy.
  • Strengthens the body defence mechanism.
  • Provides you with energy and power.
  • It will sustain life support systems.
  • It will help in your goal of weight loss.
  • Cholesterol will be controlled at the desired level.
  • Additionally, it dacts as skin siftening agent.

But coconut oil is a saturated oil, everybody knows it. But how can it be labeled as healthy? It is beacause of its very configuration as a chemical compound. It contains medium-chain essential fatty acids (MCFA’s), whereas most other vegetable oils and fats contain lengthy-chain essential fatty acids (LCFA’s). LCFA’s can be detrimental to one’s health.

Our body will find it strenuous to digest these oils. Not only the digestive system, but other organs such as liver, pncreas etc have to bear the burden also. Un-processed fat gets accumulated in the body which will lead to higher levels of cholesterol. LCFA’s more often than not get saved as body fat.

Medium-chain fatty acids are easy to get digested and processed leading to fat reduction. Instead of getting accumulated in teh body, they help body’s metabolism.

Another really awesome proven fact is that coconut oil consists of Lauric Acid, that is a natural chemical compound present in breast milk. Lauric acidi is vital since it fortifies your defense mechanisms.

Be selective when buying coconut oil. Use only the very fresh oil that is available in the supermarkets. Don’t go by the expiry date comfort. They may turn rancid even before thier expiry date. Opt for fresh coconut oil that is extracted from fresh coconuts, not from dried nuts. They sttaste stale and turn rancid in no time.